Today’s post is part of a weekly series called “Travel Toss-Up,” in which we ask you to take your pick between two amazing travel experiences.

This week’s toss-up offers a choice of two places to see colorful spring flowers.

Would you rather…

… explore Japan during cherry blossom season, or …

… see spring blooms in the Swiss Alps?

Japan is famous for its sakura, or cherry blossoms, which flower at various times between March and May (depending on which region of the country you’re visiting). In the mountains of Switzerland, striking alpine flowers add color to meadows and hillsides throughout the spring and summer.

Today’s post is part of a weekly series called “Travel Toss-Up,” in which we ask you to take your pick between two amazing travel experiences.

This week’s toss-up offers a choice of two experiences on the water.

Would you rather…

… stay in an overwater bungalow in the Maldives, or …

… explore the Mediterranean coast from a private yacht?

Think “overwater bungalows” and you probably think of French Polynesia, but the remote Maldives Islands also have their share of these luxe accommodations, hovering over the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. In between diving and swimming, you can visit traditional villages and even join the locals on a night fishing excursion before retreating back to your bungalow. If sailing along the Mediterranean coast is more your speed, you can charter a yacht through companies such as AquaCruise, Sunsail or Yachting Partners International. Potential destinations include Spain, France, Greece, Croatia, Italy and more.

Many consider spring a time for renewal — birds are chirping, flowers are blooming and people are getting married in droves. But just because winter is over and spring is on its way, doesn’t mean we immediately feel like singing “Here Comes the Sun.” What better cure than travel for what ails you? These five suggestions might be the change of pace you need to get chirping, blooming and falling in love with the season.

I’m Still Cold — For many of us, this winter was a brutal one and is still hanging tight. If the upwards motion of your thermometer is moving at a painstaking pace, jump-start your sun worship with some solar energy. The prospect of being stuck at a warm-weather resort during spring break is a scary one, so consider less conventional locations to heat you up. Post-Carnival, many South American capitals experience a dip in tourism. Lucky for us, weather is still pleasant in March and April (average highs in the 70s to 80s) and prices are cheaper in cities like Lima, Cartagena, San Jose, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. If you’re looking for something a bit farther, try a number of hot (literally and figuratively) Southeast Asian destinations including Chiang Mai, Goa and Luang Prabang in Laos; temperatures get into the 90s, but evenings are cooler and your money will go much farther in this region. If you’re looking to venture closer to the states, Mexico City offers equal respite from frozen precipitation and partygoers.

I’m Tired — Like jet lag, but seasonal, post-hibernation sloth might take an adjustment period. To transition you from your winter cocoon into a spring butterfly, why not retreat for some vernal rejuvenation? From the spa keystone of Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona or Lenox, Massachusetts to a hotel in Paris that offers rooms specializing in a sleep-inducing atmosphere, why not splurge on some beauty rest? Helping you catch Zzzs has become an industry trend, according to a recent New York Times article.

I Haven’t Moved in Months — The New Year brings resolutions, but it also brings inevitable excuses: It’s dark out too early, it’s cold, I’m swamped with work, I just want to curl up into a ball and marathon everything ever broadcast on television. A new season is stimulus to step outdoors and renew your self-promises, and why not kick-start the process with an entire change of scenery? Plenty of walking, biking and other generally active tours will motivate you into movement with ample sightseeing and rewarding rest breaks. Not every active tour moves at a breakneck speed; Access Trips offers biking trips at beginner to intermediate levels, and tour companies like G Adventures allow you to sort through vacation packages by travel style and physical level. Destinations wrap the globe and feature Costa Rica, Turkey and the Outback.

I Miss Holidays — Sure, we had Thesaurus Day (January 18) and National Earmuff Day (March 13), but they lacked the hoopla of the major winter holidays. This lull in festive food-stuffing and paid time off can be a bummer, so travel somewhere that’s celebrating something! Tourism Week (March/April) has replaced Holy Week in Uruguay, as a country with no official religion. As for a devoutly religious country, Italy always seems to be celebrating a saint’s day — The Feast of St. Mark takes place on April 25 in Venice, and features boat races with gondoliers. Same goes for India — days of religious observance pepper the calendar throughout the year, with many taking place in April. The city of Brasov, in Romania, officially welcomes spring with Junii (Feast of Youth) — including an elaborate horseback parade and weeklong feast around the Easter holiday season. You can even ring in the first day of summer, in April; it takes place on April 24 in Iceland.

I Miss Winter — This phrase may fall on deaf ears, but some people actually like winter — to the point where they want more than a few months of it. If you can’t get enough of the frozen wonderland, and don’t plan on visiting either of the poles, then perhaps the Antarctic Experience at museums in either London or New Zealand will satisfy the need for extreme wintry conditions. Outside of an artificial experience, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a traditional winter in spring in the northern hemisphere or fall in the southern hemisphere. Still, plenty of places in the world experience snow in April, and Scandinavia is one of them. Ski resorts thrive into spring in Norway, Sweden and Greenland, but mainly in high-altitude mountainous regions. As a bonus, the aurora borealis can still be witnessed throughout the month of April.

As Elissa Leibowitz Poma writes in 12 Best Costa Rica Experiences, “Given its volcanic landscape, Costa Rica has quite a few natural hot springs and mud pools. Most are open to the public; independent travelers visiting small towns should ask around about hot springs on private property that you can get permission to access with a sweet smile and small ‘donation.'” In Bali, the rice terraces climbing the green hills make for striking photo ops. Some of the most beautiful are near the village of Tegallalang.

There’s something about train travel that just feels romantic. You’re not behind the wheel; you’re not in a middle seat at high altitude; you’re simply coasting along with an oftentimes sweeping view. This form of travel lends itself well to getting lost in thought, so why not use it to do something memorable? Here are three ways to turn your next rendezvous with the rails into more than just an ordinary journey.

Write the Next Great American Novel

Have you ever wished for a prestigious writer’s residency? Well, how about one onboard a train? The #AmtrakResidency program, sponsored by Amtrak, is calling all writers to submit their applications for a multi-day writing residency aboard one of the railroad’s domestic trains. Free of charge, the program is in part marketing for the train line, but it’s also a fantastic chance to use our nation’s passing landscapes to inspire poems, prose or even tweets. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis through March 2015. According to the site, “A passion for writing and an aspiration to travel with Amtrak for inspiration are the sole criteria for selection. Both emerging and established writers will be considered.”

Travel Back to the ’20s with National Geographic

El Transcantabrico Gran Lujo is a private train with original British Pullman cars refurbished from the 1920s. Serving the northern coast of Spain, the line is frequently chartered by National Geographic for rail journeys through the scenic region. Your expedition includes the tips of a professional photographer and a special excursion through the wine region with a one-night stay at Parador Hostal Dos Reis Catolicos, which claims to be the oldest hotel in the world. Suites onboard the train include a queen bed, living room, large windows, private bathroom with a shower, hydro sauna, and steam bath. Watch Basque country pass by your window as you chat with onboard National Geographic experts.

Relive a Wes Anderson Film in India

Director Wes Anderson’s newest film, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” features many scenes onboard a train in a fictional faux-European region called the Republic of Zubrowka. But another one of his films, “The Darjeeling Limited,” was inspired by a very real train line: the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Train travel in India is a microcosm of the whole country: crowded, chaotic, unpredictable, impressive and a feast for the senses. The railway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the beauty of the countryside is just as apparent on screen, during sibling spats, and off. Whether you’re three brothers on a cinematic journey for closure, or just along for the ride, this train trip is bound to bring a plot twist.

Trekking through the Amazon, embarking from Canada as the first to drive to the magnetic North Pole, road tripping through Botswana and even riding through Chernobyl; it may sound like the best travel show you’ve never heard of, and that’s because it’s not a travel show at all — it’s Top Gear, a British program about cars.

The hosts — Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond — are car MacGyvers and automobile enthusiasts who drive and review virtually anything with wheels, along with the show’s anonymous racecar driver known only as the Stig. Airing in its current format for more than 10 years, the BBC show primarily features cars you could never dream of owning placed along the winding roads of drool-worthy backdrops such as the Amalfi Coast or the dunes of Abu Dhabi.

Clarkson could be considered the Anthony Bourdain of car shows (with May and Hammond just as cheeky) for those unfamiliar with the Top Gear concept. Their clever devil-may-care personalities, impressive knowledge and adventurous spirit lend themselves well to British banter and thrilling test drives, but even better to their globe-trotting (er, driving) episodes.

Though there may be other challenges peppered throughout, most seasons culminate with a special that inevitably flings the trio across the globe on a daunting journey in seemingly preposterous conditions. They make eating bugs or snakes with some remote tribe look like a cake walk. Typically armed with a tight budget and a ridiculous set of conditions, they forge ahead to find the source of the Nile or retrace the pilgrimage of the three wise men. In Bolivia, the motoring threesome bought second-hand off-road vehicles and navigated them to their mechanical limits across jungles and hair-raising hairpin turns on what’s known affectionately as Death Road. They then attempted a risky ascent into Chile across Guallatiri, an active volcano. This was thwarted by altitude sickness, but the footage they took was spectacular.

This season’s two-part finale (which has just aired) takes place in Myanmar (Burma), and the Top Gear camera crew was granted access to remote areas of the country — a first for any television crew. The challenge: to build a bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand and then drive across it. Along the way they gave viewers a first-time glimpse into the world of the Shan — an area of Myanmar larger than England and Wales combined with just one road built 150 years ago, no electricity, no hospitals and no planes overhead. Still in the midst of a 60-year-long civil war (the longest-running in the world), the Shan is unveiled as a lush, untouched stretch of otherworldly earth, with a reclusivity that gives it a mystique rarely found in today’s hyper-connected universe. Here’s a preview:

I was initially worried about making it through an hour-long British TV show about cars, but I’ve walked away each time laughing and actually learning something — not just about the coupes, convertibles and caravans, but about the countries the hosts drive them through. I’ve discovered that you don’t have to tune in to the Travel Channel to find travel; you can find it in the most unexpected places. For me, that sweet spot is Top Gear. Think of it as armchair travel with an engine.

St. Patrick’s Day, which honors the patron saint of Ireland, is celebrated with parades, green clothing and the odd drink or two by the Irish diaspora around the world. Holi is a Hindu festival that honors the coming of spring with frolicking and the flinging of colorful powder; it’s observed primarily in India and other South Asian nations.

Are you energized by bustling cities, or would you rather lose yourself in a quiet village? Sorano is one of Italy’s many medieval hill towns, home to several picturesque churches as well as a castle, Fortezza Orsini. Meanwhile, Osaka is Japan’s third largest city, boasting endless shops, major museums (including the National Museum of Art) and the country’s oldest Buddhist temple, Shitennoji.

No matter your own spiritual leanings, religious buildings such as cathedrals, temples and mosques are some of the world’s most spectacular buildings. As we write in our Istanbul travel guide, the Hagia Sophia was “once a church, then a mosque, [and] was made into a museum in 1935 after the secular Turkish Republic was founded.” Angkor, Cambodia, is home to a number of Hindu and Buddhist Temples dating back to the Khmer Empire (9th – 15th centuries).

Baklava is a popular dessert in Turkey, Greece, and other countries in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Phyllo dough is stuffed with chopped nuts and drizzled with honey. Mooncakes are traditionally eaten during China’s Mid-Autumn Festival, accompanied by a cup of tea. They’re made of lotus seed or sweet bean paste, along with lard and egg yolk — a delicious but calorie-rich treat.